


the gang gets successful

by angelheartbeat



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Actors, Bodyguard, Childhood Friends, Lesbian Dee, M/M, Musicians, Slow Burn, Veterinary Clinic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-15 09:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: Due to a series of unfortunate events, the gang drifted apart in their early twenties and all forged their own paths into what some could consider success.They never figured they'd miss each other, though.





	the gang gets successful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the gang gets successful except mac whoops  
> if u want a rundown on this au @spooky-space-stars (on tumblr) posted one on their blog but you don't have to read it to get the story

The first few minutes of the interview that was hopefully for Mac's new job were, arguably, the weirdest fucking minutes of his entire life.

As soon as he'd entered, the man on the other side of the desk (who looked like a troll, by the way) had frowned at him, muttered something that sounded a bit like "queen" or maybe "near" under his breath, and continued to eat peanuts out of a bag that was at least half his size. He'd then stared at him for the remainder of the minutes, before finally dragging his gaze down to the scribbled piece of paper with "resume" written at the top. Something about him was oddly familiar, but he couldn't place what.

"Why'd you want the job?" the man, Frank Reynolds the plaque on his door had said, asked suddenly. Mac shifted in his seat. 

"Uhh, so I can eat, bro. And live somewhere."

Frank grunted. "Are you good at bodyguarding?"

"The best, man! Ask literally anyone. Does this job have health insurance?"

"Only if you're good."

Mac considered it for a minute. "Yeah, that's fair. So what'd you think of my resume, dude?"

"There's two things on here. You can fight even more better than those dudes in action films, an' you can win a starin' contest against anyone."

Suddenly, the cog clicked into place as to where Mac knew him from. "Wait, bro, weren't you my high school best friends dad or some shit?"

"Don't ask me that again an' you're hired."

"Sweet!"

And that was how the shortest, weirdest and only job interview of Mac's life concluded in rousing triumph. He had a job, he could finally move out of Mom's house - the cigarette stench was really starting to get to him, much as he loved her - and no one had yet done a background check and unearthed the two months in juvie for stealing and crashing his math teacher's car in eighth grade (to be fair, she had it coming). Or they had, and they just didn't give a shit. And Frank had the vibe of the latter.

Although he'd recognised him from the photos in Dennis' house back in high school, there was someone else that Frank made him think of that he couldn't quite place. Whoever they were, they were that weird mix of gross apathy, not giving a shit and- oh. Oh, right. Charlie.

Even the thought of him made Mac scowl against the wind on his walk home. The bitch who thought that friendship was more important than God and that Mac was gay, which he wasn't, obviously. Mac swore if he ever saw that rat bastard again, he'd not only destroy him with his devastating comeback to their argument eight years beforehand, but then punch him in the nuts for good measure.

Seriously, Mac couldn't believe he'd spent twenty years with the guy before they finally came to blows. What an asshole. Mac didn't miss him. Not even a little bit. Not even when he saw a stray cat or huffed glue in his room because he was out of weed. Mac's badass, and he doesn't miss dickheads who are going to hell.

If there was anything he did miss, it was the constancy of having a best friend rather than any particular attachment to Charlie. Now he just spent most days either in his room, cooking and cleaning for his mom, at the gym or drinking at one of the local bars. He never got to do dumb schemes anymore. That was what he missed, not stupid asshole Charlie Kelly.

Mac scowled again as he hung up his coat. He'd spent the entire walk home thinking about Charlie, rather than actually being excited for his new job. He had a job! He hadn't had a job in at least a year, and he didn't even count that because he'd been fired, and he'd read somewhere to not put jobs you'd been fired from on your resume.

"Hey mom!" he called out, pushing all thoughts of his former best friend deep deep down. He got no reply. That was fine, he knew she was home - she never left. He could tell her about his new job, and she'd be happy for him. She always was.

* * *

If Mac had looked up from frowning at the ground on his angry walk home, he would have seen a poster blazoned across a building that advertised one of the world's most prominent up-and-coming musicians, very predictably Charlie Kelly.

Charlie Kelly had fought with his best friend and, being a man of spontaneous inclination and a propensity to do whatever the fuck he wanted, immediately packed his bags and decided to leave Philly. Having never left before, this was a pretty damn big step to what would eventually lead to the aforementioned poster.

He'd played piano and sung in as many places that would allow his cursing and give him drinks on the house, until his luck broke and someone scooped him up for a hit single. One hit single turned into another, which turned into an album, which turned into Charlie sitting wearing sunglasses in bed with his laptop, painfully hungover and reading every tweet that called him out for being an alcoholic, drug addict piece of shit who made nonsensical music and didn't deserve his fame. They didn't affect him in the slightest. That was mostly because he couldn't read them.

Vaguely, he sometimes wondered where he'd be now if he hadn't had that argument with Mac all those years ago. Probably still in Philly, having less fateful arguments every day and only making music alone at home where no one could hear, comment on or judge it in any capacity. Except his mom. And that was just because she would barge in on him all the time. 

The best way to cure a hangover is to never stop being drunk, that was Charlie's current motto. That was also the reason behind the cans of beer littered across his bed, one of which Mittons was busy playing with. That was also probably why the tweets were slamming him so viciously.

Who cared, though? Charlie was having a good life. It didn't matter if he missed actually talking to people that weren't agents, or producers, or anyone that was just interested in his music and not him. Who gave a shit if he missed having people who actually appreciated his presence, even if they did shit on him endlessly? He didn't need to be doing gross things and pulling terrible schemes and doing everything he did in high school to be happy. High school fucking sucked. He was sad and high all the time, and he only passed because he had Mac, Dennis and Dee to shame him into passing (and pass him notes, and do his homework, and make up excuses to his teachers - although none of them would ever admit that to one another).

No, he could chill out here, in his too-big apartment with his too-clean cat and his too-fancy laptop that made him feel all fake and plastic and very little like Charlie Kelly at all.

Yeah, he was happy here. Of course he was.

* * *

Dennis was doing very nicely for himself, thank you very much.

He had a veterinary clinic of his very own, he dealt with people's spoiled animals who were only sometimes assholes, and he hadn't had a breakdown in a fair amount of time. So yeah, he was doing pretty nicely.

Currently, though, he was trying to administer a vaccine to someone's temperamental cat, and his arms were already covered in scratches that would burn like hell to clean up later. He could feel his pulse rising, which was never a good sign.

"All done, Mrs Johnson," he said cheerfully once the cat had calmed down and taken the damn shot, fake smile plastered across his face.

"Will my baby be alright?" Mrs Johnson fussed, cuddling her cat close and making kissy sounds at it. Dennis had to fight to keep from throttling her. Mrs Johnson was a regular, which usually boded poorly considering where Dennis worked, as she was constantly convinced that her darling, baby, spoiled cat was suffering a life-threatening illness when it more often than not had the sniffles or had been lying down for what she deemed to be Too Long. Dennis would have felt sorry for it, if it wasn't a yowly bitch who scratched him halfway to shreds every time.

Running his own clinic was not only exhausting, it had very little reward for what he ended up doing most of the time. He'd thought it was what he wanted to do. He'd abandoned his twin sister in a mental hospital for this degree, and he wasn't about to give up on it now. He had a big house, a nice car, he wasn't in contact with the savages he'd fraternized with in the younger years - all in all, a successful life.

Besides, if the mentions he'd heard of Dee were anything to go by, she was doing fine too, whether or not he'd abandoned her in that institution. He tried not to think about her though. It just made him angry and numb and something else he didn't want to name, so he ignored it at all costs and if anyone asked, he was an only child. Reynolds? Just a coincidence - its a common surname. Family resemblance? He doesn't see it.

Mrs Johnson and her fat feline waved as they left the clinic, forcing Dennis to maintain his cheesy grin. He supposed they were nice enough, in an idiotic sort of way. An obnoxious, hypochondriac, bitchy sort of way.

"How many more?" he asked his receptionist, who wasn't pretty enough to spend his energy pursuing but pretty enough that he would allow her to remain employed.

"Four, Dr Reynolds. Two dogs, two cats."

"Jesus, alright. Send the next one in."

* * *

No thanks to Dennis' abandonment of her in her college years, Dee had veered off into relative fame and riches.

The Incident had only served to prove that she didn't need those assholes in her life, clogging up her chance at success. It was easy to cut ties with them, given that none of them had ever really given a shit about her (that stung a little, admittedly, but it wasn't like it was new information).

Besides, her new strides into finally pursuing fame had led her to meet who would later become the love of her life, at one of the weekly shows hardly anyone attended - bar the regulars who booed before she even opened her mouth. To their credit, it was usually followed by a round of gagging. But one week, her admittedly-poor jokes had been followed by a giggle and a little round of applause, which had strengthened them week by week until the comedy club was actually rippling with laughter and she hadn't tasted vomit in weeks.

Eventually, she'd needed to seek out that little giggle that had led to all that, and discovered it belonging to a gorgeous rich girl called Ruby. She'd almost pit-stained herself into oblivion, but Ruby didn't notice, just laughed more at her jokes and finally, shyly, asked her if she'd like to get dinner sometime, and obviously Dee had agreed.

So really, she thought, years in the future, laying in bed with her arm around her wife and watching a show that she starred in, her life was going just about as well as it possibly could be. So why, then, was there a big gaping hole in her heart?

The only things or people she could think that she'd left behind for bigger and better things were the city of Philadelphia, her mom and dad, her brother, her high school friends and her childhood home and wealth. None of those made sense, anyway. Philly was shitty (and besides, Ruby said she'd always wanted to move to LA), her mom was a narcissistic bitch, her dad was a neglectful troll, her brother manipulated everyone around him for shits and giggles, her high school friends were white trash losers with a combined IQ of 12, and her current home and bank account were arguably just as if not more impressive than those of her dad when she was a kid. Ok, maybe not quite. But she had her own sitcom, damnit!

But there's something to be said for the camaraderie of laying in a basement full of weed smoke at 17 years old, spine shrieking with metal, mouth full of smoke and cotton, right next to people just as cruel and angry as you are, even if you wind up the butt of their jokes more often than not. Against every single shred of better judgement she'd ever had, she thought maybe deep down she did miss home.

But she hadn't spoken to her brother since he'd left the institute that one night in college. She was tired, overworked and angry, and her fingers smelled like ash and burnt flesh. Dennis stood by her bedside, glare as cold and judgemental as always, and mumbled; "Dee, you're a bitch."

He'd called her it thousands of times, but none had struck quite so deep. Maybe it was him that finally snapped her. She shouldn't miss him. She didn't want to miss him. So why, god why, did she?

* * *

As far as Frank was concerned, he didn't have kids.

Those two whiny bitches his whore wife had sired? Just that, whiny bitches. He was perfectly content to let them run off and fuck up their lives in a multitude of different ways. It wasn't up to him to tell them when they were being stupid. And if he so happened to have any illegitimate mini-Franks running around the place, that wasn't his fault (and god have mercy that they didn't get his genes). 

Deandra had visited him once, before she left for Las Vegas, or wherever it was she was moving to. All she'd done was try and bleed his bank account dry, though, so he was right to kick her out before she could succeed. Plus, what the shit was she talkin' about, "walk her down the aisle"? If she was implying she was getting married, that was the greatest story she'd ever spun. No way would she get a husband. Dennis hadn't bothered to come home since Frank had paid for his last year of college. No clue where he'd got himself to. Jail, probably.

Life was boring, though, without them around. Every day, he went to work, yelled at some idiots about doing their jobs wrong, filed some paperwork, and came home to a massive house that was empty ever since his whore wife filed for divorce. And good riddance, too. Even if the house was so much emptier without all her shit.

At least if the kids were here, they'd be destroying some shit, or getting into trouble with the cops, or  _something._

When the death threat came in the mail, he was almost ( _almost_ ) relieved, underneath the initial reaction of anger, and underneath both of those there was a hint of fear. There was no way to wield his gun at everyone he came in contact with, though (last time he tried they put him in jail overnight and his whore wife had to bail him out), so his only option seemed to be hiring a bodyguard.

Which led to the queer sitting in front of him in a sleeveless t-shirt pretending to be qualified, which Frank really doubted.

He'd read a lot of shitty resumes, but this one took the cake. It wasn't even printed out, and the kid clearly had failed at least one English class in high school. But really, Frank didn't care enough to interview everyone else, so Mac No-Last-Name-Given it was.

Heading home to a silent mansion after that interview was almost impossible.

Frank wondered what his kids were up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my lip is so badly cracked it literally hurts to move it even a little how are you guys doing
> 
> scene: Set!! this fic will kick into story mode next chapter dw this was just a prologue of sorts
> 
> comment for a danny devito sized bag of peanuts. if ur allergic to nuts too bad


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